


Restless Night II

by Writerperson78



Category: King of Fighters
Genre: Character Development, Childhood Trauma, Conversations, Cuddling, Established Relationship, F/M, Late Night Conversations, Mentions of Violence, Naked Cuddling, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:27:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28030011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writerperson78/pseuds/Writerperson78
Summary: Another night where the two decided to shed more of their pasts to each other. When you've gone through as much as these two, it's sort of natural this would happen now and again...especially when you're in a new situation where you are *able* to spill things with someone finally.A little interlude one-shot.
Relationships: Adelheid Bernstein/Seirah | Whip





	Restless Night II

**Author's Note:**

> A little bit of a disclaimer: There's some kinda dark material here that's some past discussion, dealing with Adelheid being forced to kill at a young age. It's not described too graphically but if you're sensitive to children being forced to fight/mental scarring kind of things I wanted to at least give a head's up. It mentions Whip having to shoot someone at a young age too, for that matter.

While Whip was used to sleeping on her own her entire life-at best, in a barracks in her own bed, or a hotel room paid for by the government-the past few months she had grown very accustomed to having someone in bed with her. Someone whom she had grown  _ incredibly  _ close to...and he with her. They were not overly clingy, so much as devoid of affection for so much of their lives they were seemingly trying to make up for it. 

So when she sensed he was no longer there, she slowly started to awaken, rubbing her eyes. 

She and Adelheid didn’t spend  _ every _ night together, but they were together typically half of the days out of a week; sometimes in a row, sometimes spaced out. And when she was at her hotel with the rest of her unit, or traveling, she was typically fine and could sleep through the night-unless the bad dreams hit, of course, which happened randomly. It was just before, she had no real comfort for them except to sit awake until sunup, or until she fell back to sleep, hoping they wouldn’t come again. 

But whenever Adelheid moved from the bed in the middle of the night with his own troubles, she could instinctively  _ tell _ when he was no longer next to her, even if she was fast asleep when he did. Sitting up, she looked over and indeed saw him on the couch; the room was dim and kept nice and warm, as always, so sleeping naked as they did made no difference. 

He seemed to have a glass of wine in his hand, sitting on the arm of the couch. She could tell, squinting, he hadn’t even put any clothes on after he got up; a quick check of the clock showed it was after two. 

_ He must have had quite the bad dreams again if he’s like that. _

Scratching at her torso a moment-the injuries they had sustained about three weeks before were healing  _ very _ well, but were now in their mad itching phase-she started to slide out of the bed, not bothering grabbing her clothes, either. She still had quite a pleasant ache in her body from that night’s session of intimacy, of which they dropped off to sleep rather quickly after. 

Turning his head to the side when he heard her get up, Adelheid smiled softly. “You knew,” he said, taking a sip of the wine. He slid down to sit on the couch proper.

Making her way over, she leaned behind him, sliding her arms around his neck and leaning into his hair with her face a moment, enjoying its feel before kissing him once. She slid down to nuzzle next to his head. 

“I know when you aren't there anymore, somehow," she said, kissing him softly near his ear. "Which one was it?”

“The one that I can’t sleep after. It doesn’t come often, but…” 

She walked around, sliding next to him as he slid an arm around her; the warmth of her body pressing against his soothing him some. “I know.” She knew that one. It dealt with when she had seen him in his absolute darkest state. 

“Then I started thinking of other things. Then... _ more _ things. Then...I just needed a drink.” He snorted some laughter, swirling the wine in his glass. Adelheid was not a very excessive drinker. He would have a few too many with Ralf and Clark sometimes, but his drinks were generally limited to a couple at night one or two nights a week; so for him to crack open a wine bottle at two in the morning, she knew, he _ had _ to be bothered. He turned toward her as she leaned against him to meet her in a lingering, fairly deep kiss. 

This, of course, helped his overall mood. 

She walked around the couch after it broke to take her own glass, pour some of the wine into it and curl up next to him. “Guess I’m joining you.” 

He smiled, a hand tracing down her arm. 

Whip and Adelheid were, to put it lightly, two people who could not escape their pasts easily. It was just that before this, they had no one to truly talk to about things. Rose and Adelheid were close, of course-until Those from the Past seemingly started to force her to grow more distant, or so he suspected-but there were still things that they did not share in terms of outlook, even though they were able to be there for each other for other things. Adelheid would occasionally confide in Henrik, but in the end, he was alone in his own thoughts with other things, since it was hard for others to understand something like having to fight against  _ literal _ ‘bad blood’ in one’s veins caused by a mystic being over two decades ago when his father decided to mess with the wrong person. Rose dealt with things her own way-through her, it seemed to manifest more in ambition and her strange ability to attune her music to his killing instinct to bring it out all the more easily...making it again, harder for him to fight it. 

He stopped trying to figure out the  _ hows _ and the  _ whys _ all of this worked long ago. He just knew he had a dark side, and he wrestled with it often. He knew he wasn’t always going to win, so the best he figured to do would be to turn it on those who were more deserving of it. His head could end up a mess some nights when he tried to overthink things, as his generally good heart would try to deny it. 

Whip was in a similar situation-she had partners who she trusted, but some of those very deep seeded things she could not bring herself to talk about. There were some things that she felt that it was difficult for them to understand. Leona was distant herself, not that Whip blamed her, but it sort of caused her to be unable to really process how the others were feeling. Ralf and Clark were very much like big brothers to her-but there were things that, again, it was hard to get people to understand. Something you needed  _ more _ than a rapport with, but a certain sort of bond, one that she had not found until now. 

Tucking her legs behind herself as she leaned into him, his arm securely over her, she looked up at him as she sipped some of the fine wine.  _ Not used to drinking as soon as I wake up _ , she thought. 

“Want to get it out?” she asked. 

Adel sighed, running his thumb over the wineglass for a moment. “After I got the old dream out of my head...I just started thinking back over everything. Like, first back to Johan and everything that happened. Then back to other things. Like that room, and the statues.” He paused. “One of them...was mine.”

She cocked her head to the side. 

“As in, someone I killed. My first one. I was twelve.”

Whip nodded, her stomach sinking. She...had a feeling that his first mortal fight had come at a younger age than anyone would have liked to have heard. The NESTS crew had been forced young enough, and in her case it was done with a bullet.

Which to be fair, was _still_ fucking horrible, she knew. 

“I loved training and showing off. Always did...I started so young. To me, it was fun. I didn’t see many other kids...once in a blue moon someone my father worked with would have a child that I would see, but I was too shy at that time. Rose was eight. I would train with adults.” He smirked for a moment. “And win. I used to get so proud when they would brag about how strong I was...how I could destroy training bags even then. I started to practice on huge, heavy stuff.” He looked at his drink a few moments before taking a swallow and looking back over at Whip. “Unfortunately that wouldn’t last long. My father started to get upset that I wasn’t...going  _ hard _ enough.” 

“On your trainers?”

“It’s not like he wouldn’t use those up. He didn’t like how I’d hold back.”

She nodded. She had remembered hearing how he’d kill servants if he was in a foul mood. She imagined training partners were chewed through like paper. Like he even  _ needed _ them. 

“So one day...he puts a rival against me. Old partner, their relationship turned sour for some reason. He was armed. My father said it was kill or be killed...and shut the door.” 

Whip looked down, sort of spinning the wine in her glass. She wondered if she’d need more tonight. 

“If you had only knocked him out...what would he have done?”

“Oh...he wouldn’t have killed me. I was too valuable to him, I knew.” She noticed that he didn’t say anything about them being father or son or anything  _ unimportant _ like that. “But I think he... _ knew. _ He knew that being in a life or death situation would bring... _ it _ out of me finally. That instinct he probably knew was there all along.”

She held his scarred hand and let him talk.. He did seem fairly disturbed thinking about it.

“He cut me once. After that...I sort of blanked out. I remember some. I knocked him down and just kicked him until he died. One of the only times the bastard was actually  _ proud _ of me, like I said.” He slammed down his drink. “Rose had no idea. She was told that her big brother won one of his biggest fights yet. She was proud of me too. She didn’t understand what big brother was  _ doing _ until a few years later,” he growled. “And by that time...I think she had been sort of pushed toward the ambitious side. Where she started to not...mind.”

Whip could only nod, reaching up after setting her glass down to stroke his hair some. 

“He had the corpse taken and...turned into a statue. I still remember standing there with blood splattered all over me after it. It was all over the floor, just...gushing out of his head.” He looked out the window. “He wasn’t a good man or anything, given he worked happily with my father for a while. And yes, I will do the same to people like that now. I do  _ way _ worse now since I’m far, far stronger. And no...I don’t regret people like the ones who attacked us. I don't regret killing Johan, either. But…” he looked at Whip. “It...wasn’t his death that bothered me that much then. It was the fact my father sent the man in to kill me. That...I think back to that. I think back to that being the first time I killed and how  _ easy _ it came to me. And that’s when I start to think about how much like him I might be.” He drank off most of the wine left in the glass. “I remember seeing that statue there all the time. To him, it was a testament when he got me to kill for the first time.”

_ To you, it was the end of your childhood _ , Whip thought. “You  _ had _ to. You would have died.”

“I...don’t know why this stuff caught up to me so much lately,” he said, looking at her. 

“Maybe…” she started. “Maybe this is the first time you’ve been able to actually  _ talk _ about it with someone?” she asked.

Adelheid rubbed his chin, before pouring himself another glass and leaning back again. “Maybe,” he finally said. He gave her a soft smile with that, which told her everything. 

Whip tucked back under his arm, looking at her own glass. “I’ll never forget that night where I called you and you drove to the hotel half dressed earlier in the fall,” she said. 

“Why wouldn’t I?” he said. 

“Like you...I’m not used to that, I guess? This...is the first time I’ve ever been this close to anyone in my life.” She looked off to the side. It seemed that in starting to go back over his past, her own things would end up being dredged up, as well. 

“You can talk, too,” he said softly. He knew she didn't grow up happy, either; he felt her childhood was probably far worse than his, all told, as at _least_ he had servants who cared.

She leaned close to him as he brushed back some of her hair to kiss her temple lightly, waiting for her to continue. "It was the fact they rarely came back," she said, rubbing her forehead a moment.

“They?”

“Everyone,” she said sadly. "You would get used to having a few friends around. Then they'd go off for 'the tests.' And sometimes there's one less that comes back. Or...maybe none come back. And they tell you at first they moved to a new facility." She paused as she gripped his battle-roughened hand, interlocking fingers with him. "When you get older, you realize what really happens most of the time. Sure, some really do get moved, but…" she trailed off finally, looking at him. "Can you believe I still hate doctor's needles?" she said, her voice slightly shaky. “I like my earrings...I can face down weapons, but doctor’s needles…” She shivered. 

Adelheid was silent for a few moments, letting her lean into him as he kissed her again softly to calm her nerves. He remembered when one of their medics had given them an antibiotic shot after they had returned from the trip where they had collected their injuries...she had gotten quiet, and taken his hand rather tightly, though said nothing afterward. He didn’t press her about it. 

"I can believe it. I mean...I still hate this one sort of weird fancy soufflé. My dad had it served for dinner after everything I told you. All I can remember was him being proud of me for the first time in my life...and me remembering the guy begging at the end as I was killing him...begging me to stop. I think if I can still hate a silly food yours is  _ more _ than understandable." 

Whip pressed her head into him, glad he understood. She had never spoken about this before, either; she managed to hide it around her crew for awhile. She looked back up at him after leaning back, still tucked warmly against him. She reached over to grab the light blanket that was kept on the back of the couch to pull over her legs, as she was content to not be dressed.

“I started just...not wanting friends anymore. You can imagine.” She looked down. It was really no wonder that she had no want to try to get close to people. “When they stop coming back…” she trailed off, rubbing at her arm; the healing scars itched. “You just shut them out. Then with Krizalid and…” she paused, playing with his fingers. “I remember the one without a name. He had such a sweet relationship with another girl there. She died on the table and he almost went mad looking for her.” 

Adelheid moved closer to her after pouring her more wine when she offered up her glass. She pressed herself into his torso as he slid his arm around her; he tightened it, as those last words she said hit a nerve with him. 

“My partners now-I let them in to be friends. I still sometimes feel like slightly more of an outsider there...but they are dear to me. I...I...almost tried to resist this, those months ago. But something...told me not to this time.” She smiled up at him softly. “I am so glad I didn’t.” 

“Same,” he quickly said. 

She thought again for a minute. “Mind if I ask you about something else?”

“You always can,” he said, bringing up his hand again to gently finger her hair. 

“When did...Rose first start getting worse?” she asked, swirling her glass. She felt a bit guilty for asking. She never got to meet Rose when she was the little sister that Adelheid longed to have back, and she was sad about this. 

He smiled softly, rubbing her head reassuringly.

“First, it was after my dad’s secretaries started spending more time with her,” Adel replied. “He ended up with those weird secretaries. He became even more unhinged than he always was...if that’s possible. And then I noticed when she would play for me...something would happen.” He scratched his hair uncomfortably. “She was just about fourteen when that happened. I was barely eighteen. I think they had hinted to her even before that. She was told that the piano music made me ‘strong.’” He looked off to the side. “She got weird otherwise, too. Where before that she would like to see me fight because I was her big brother...she wanted me to get more sadistic.” Now he looked down. “Then when those other weird people started showing up...it just got worse and worse.”

Whip leaned against him again. She knew he still loved his little sister, and she knew what it was like to see a sibling taken from you one way or another. 

“That said, I remember hearing about when Yagami did for them pretty badly.” He snorted dark laughter. “I didn’t recognize what they were until  _ after _ they left our household.”

“That’s what I heard, too.” She had only heard snippets of the story, but according to what she had gleaned from Heidern they had to close the alleyway that it happened in until it was cleaned. It was  _ quick _ .

The two were silent again for what seemed like a long while. Adelheid rubbed his eyes. “I feel like I’m tired...but I don’t. Sometimes you don’t want to go back to sleep.”

“I know,” she said, reaching over to rub his stomach; still bearing some of the scars of their altercation in the US. She looked up at him again and laughed. “I’m...so sorry for asking this. Now, of all times.”

He looked at her questioningly. 

“Heidern had hinted that he would like for you to come to that...holiday thing that we do. The bunch of us. It’s just some drinks and food and milling around. The usual five of us are there...a lot of lower ranks, too. It’s not really formal.” She chuckled. “It’s a bit...out of place after…”

Adel laughed, leaning over to kiss the top of her head. “No, it’s fine. And yes, I'd like to go.” Drinking some more wine, he thought a moment. “We’ll probably host something for some of the socialites like we do. I...never liked those. Rose loves them. She...didn’t talk about it much this year, though. But I’ll probably show up to it. But...that’s it. I don’t celebrate much this time of year.”

“Neither do I...just like I said. I...didn't do much.”

Finishing her glass of wine, she stood, looking at him as he sat there. “Hey...I...didn’t mean to start spilling my own stuff. When you were. I…”

Adelheid immediately shook his head, placing his hands on her sides. He bent a bit and leaned his head into her stomach, as she started to stroke his hair. Kissing it once, he looked up at her. 

“Never apologize for that,” he said. “You deserve to be happy.”

She smoothed his hair back as she looked down at him, a smile on the corner of her mouth. She felt a little emotional at his words; despite all they had done and been through together this almost half-year, something about hearing those specific words hit her. 

“So do you,” she said. She held him there, his head leaning against her stomach still. He kissed it again.

“Come back to bed?” he asked. 

Whip nodded, leaning over to kiss the top of his head, pausing to leave her face in his hair a few moments. She laughed suddenly, remembering something.

“Hm?” he asked, smiling up at her.

“I forgot to mention...my little brother is also coming to this.”

His eyebrow raised. “ _K’?_ Really? How…”

“I had told him to come along. More like  _ insisted _ . It has been a long time since I’ve seen him. He...hates parties, so he’ll probably sulk in a corner.”

He chuckled. “Guess he gets to meet me for real, then.” 

She put her hands on either side of his face to lean in to kiss him; this one lingered for some time before it broke. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.” She still remembered laughing at his words that Kula had secretly relayed to her. 

He stood, wandering back to the bed to climb back under the covers; she immediately slid up next to him. 

Both of them felt  _ quite _ a bit lighter tonight. Adelheid knew they would still have a ton to work through...that would never go away, he imagined.

But at least knowing one was never alone in such things-for once-made things  _ just _ a bit easier. 

**Author's Note:**

> (I think calling these interludes Restless Night/Restless Night II is just fine, heh.)
> 
> These two very much likely have issues upon issues to work through. I mean in a normal world they’d need years of therapy, but they seem to be using each other for necessary shoulders right now in any case, and it seems to be working well.
> 
> I like doing stories like this; ones that are exploratory pieces, to dig into the characters more, seeing what makes them tick, and cutting through some of their insecurities. These two were lucky to have found each other, I think. The game lore painted Rugal as an evil, evil bastard, and I have a sinking feeling that a young Adelheid was probably forced to kill someone when he was young thanks to his old man. 
> 
> There was also a sort of...maybe almost symbolism to them being nude the whole time. Besides them just being lazy and not wanting to dress when they woke up...they have nothing to hide from each other. 
> 
> (There was a bonus mention of another KOF character beyond K'/the Ikaris, if you may have caught!)
> 
> As the rest of the stories this stands alone, but there are a couple of references to past stories: they were injured somewhat in Blood Bond in an extensive fight they teamed up in after they were set up for something, and treated each other. (The line about the words Kula relayed were also from this story; essentially boiling down to K' actually not minding his big sister found some hot, rich guy to shack up with. High praise, in K''s world.)


End file.
